Gastrointestinal ultrasound in inflammatory bowel disease: Seeing beyond limits

When ultrasonography was first introduced in clinical practice, its use was characterized by three dogmas: air was an insuperable limitation; the bowel was impenetrable; and the results were operator dependent. Indications that air was useful in the ultrasonographic evaluation of the gastrointestinal tract came in the early 1980s [1], but the first dogma was only rebutted years later when air was shown to not be an obstacle to ultrasonographic imaging of the lungs [2]. The second dogma was first challenged by a 1979 case series [3] in Crohn ’s disease.
Source: Digestive and Liver Disease - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research